Today Ian Bogost’s essay about political games was published on Kotaku. In it, he critiques the White House’s endorsement of using games as media to change people’s minds about issues — especially because there’s no evidence of follow-up that, say, helps the least advantaged economically find and afford healthier, more wholesome foods. Then, he levels his sights against the games industry for not demanding more of these educational games. We would “demand more of Valve or EA Sports or Blizzard,” he writes, pointing out that “games can do more” and that we should expect as much out of them, even though developing a good game takes more time and money than the government apparently is willing to invest in the medium.

I fully agree that this gesture from the Obama administration is just patting the medium on the head. I fully agree that games can do more. But as the chatter about serious games has heated up — in the industry, in government, in academia, and elsewhere — the critical eye to which we should turn our assumptions about the gamic medium has not surfaced in much (ahem) seriousness. I’ve been having a good conversation with the people behind the gleefully irreverent game/parody INVOKE, which is, of course, a reference to Jane McGonigal’s current project EVOKE, about this very issue. Before we can make serious games that really change the world we live in, we should think about how serious we are about serious games.